Study on the Compressive Strength and Reaction Mechanism of Alkali-Activated Geopolymer Materials Using Coal Gangue and Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag.

By reutilizing industrial byproducts, inorganic cementitious alkali-activated materials (AAMs) contribute to reduced energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. In this study, coal gangue (CG) blended with ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) was used to prepare AAMs. The research focused on analyzing the effects of the GGBFS content and alkali activator (i.e., Na2O mass ratio and alkali modulus [SiO2/Na2O]) on the mechanical properties and microstructures of the AAMs. Through a series of spectroscopic and microscopic tests, the results showed that the GGBFS content had a significant influence on AAM compressive strength and paste fluidity; the optimal replacement of CG by GGBFS was 40-50%, and the optimal Na2O mass ratio and alkali modulus were 7% and 1.3, respectively. AAMs with a 50% GGBFS content exhibited a compact microstructure with a 28 d compressive strength of 54.59 MPa. Increasing the Na2O mass ratio from 6% to 8% promoted the hardening process and facilitated the formation of AAM gels; however, a 9% Na2O mass ratio inhibited the condensation of SiO4 and AlO4 ions, which decreased the compressive strength. Increasing the alkali modulus facilitated geopolymerization, which increased the compressive strength. Microscopic analysis showed that pore size and volume increased due to lower Na2O concentrations or alkali modulus. The results provide an experimental and theoretical basis for the large-scale utilization of AAMs in construction.

Genome-Scale Multimodal Analysis of Cell-Free DNA Whole-Methylome Sequencing for Noninvasive Esophageal Cancer Detection.

PURPOSE: Simultaneous profiling of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) methylation and fragmentation features to improve the performance of cfDNA-based cancer detection is technically challenging. We developed a method to comprehensively analyze multimodal cfDNA genomic features for more sensitive esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) detection. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Enzymatic conversion-mediated whole-methylome sequencing was applied to plasma cfDNA samples extracted from 168 patients with ESCC and 251 noncancer controls. ESCC characteristic cfDNA methylation, fragmentation, and copy number signatures were analyzed both across the genome and at accessible cis-regulatory DNA elements. To distinguish ESCC from noncancer samples, a first-layer classifier was developed for each feature type, the prediction results of which were incorporated to construct the second-layer ensemble model. RESULTS: ESCC plasma genome displayed global hypomethylation, altered fragmentation size, and chromosomal copy number alteration. Methylation and fragmentation changes at cancer tissue-specific accessible cis-regulatory DNA elements were also observed in ESCC plasma. By integrating multimodal genomic features for ESCC detection, the ensemble model showed improved performance over individual modalities. In the training cohort with a specificity of 99.2%, the detection sensitivity was 81.0% for all stages and 70.0% for stage 0-II. Consistent performance was observed in the test cohort with a specificity of 98.4%, an all-stage sensitivity of 79.8%, and a stage 0-II sensitivity of 69.0%. The performance of the classifier was associated with the disease stage, irrespective of clinical covariates. CONCLUSION: This study comprehensively profiles the epigenomic landscape of ESCC plasma and provides a novel noninvasive and sensitive ESCC detection approach with genome-scale multimodal analysis.

Efficient photoanode with a MoS2/TiO2/Au nanoparticle heterostructure for ultraviolet-visible photoelectrocatalysis.

Green energy technology is generally becoming one of hot issues that need to be solved due to the adverse effects on the environment of fossil fuels. One of the strategies being studied and developed by theorists and experimentalists is the use of photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells, which are emerging as a candidate to produce hydrogen from water splitting. However, creating photoelectrodes that meet the requirements for PEC water splitting has emerged as the primary obstacle in bringing this technology to commercial fruition. Here, we construct a heterostructure, which consists of MoS2/TiO2/Au nanoparticles (NPs) to overcome the drawbacks of the photoanode. Owing to the dependence on charge transfer, the bandgap of MoS2/TiO2and the utilization the Au NPs as a stimulant for charges separation of TiO2by localized surface plasmon resonances effect as well as the increase of hot electron injection to cathode, leading to photocatalytic activities are improved. The results have recorded a significant increase in the photocurrent density from 2.3µAcm-2of TiO2to approximately 16.3µAcm-2of MoS2/TiO2/Au NPs. This work unveils a promising route to enhance the visible light adsorption and charge transfer in photo-electrode of the PEC cells by combining two-dimensional materials with metal NPs.

TOTEM: a multi-cancer detection and localization approach using circulating tumor DNA methylation markers.

BACKGROUND: Detection of cancer and identification of tumor origin at an early stage improve the survival and prognosis of patients. Herein, we proposed a plasma cfDNA-based approach called TOTEM to detect and trace the cancer signal origin (CSO) through methylation markers. METHODS: We performed enzymatic conversion-based targeted methylation sequencing on plasma cfDNA samples collected from a clinical cohort of 500 healthy controls and 733 cancer patients with seven types of cancer (breast, colorectum, esophagus, stomach, liver, lung, and pancreas) and randomly divided these samples into a training cohort and a testing cohort. An independent validation cohort of 143 healthy controls, 79 liver cancer patients and 100 stomach cancer patients were recruited to validate the generalizability of our approach. RESULTS: A total of 57 multi-cancer diagnostic markers and 873 CSO markers were selected for model development. The binary diagnostic model achieved an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.907, 0.908 and 0.868 in the training, testing and independent validation cohorts, respectively. With a training specificity of 98%, the specificities in the testing and independent validation cohorts were 100% and 98.6%, respectively. Overall sensitivity across all cancer stages was 65.5%, 67.3% and 55.9% in the training, testing and independent validation cohorts, respectively. Early-stage (I and II) sensitivity was 50.3% and 45.7% in the training and testing cohorts, respectively. For cancer patients correctly identified by the binary classifier, the top 1 and top 2 CSO accuracies were 77.7% and 86.5% in the testing cohort (n = 148) and 76.0% and 84.0% in the independent validation cohort (n = 100). Notably, performance was maintained with only 21 diagnostic and 214 CSO markers, achieving a training AUC of 0.865, a testing AUC of 0.866, and an integrated top 2 accuracy of 83.1% in the testing cohort. CONCLUSIONS: TOTEM demonstrates promising potential for accurate multi-cancer detection and localization by profiling plasma methylation markers. The real-world clinical performance of our approach needs to be investigated in a much larger prospective cohort.

Trauma diagnostic-related target proteins and their detection techniques.

Trauma is a significant health issue that not only leads to immediate death in many cases but also causes severe complications, such as sepsis, thrombosis, haemorrhage, acute respiratory distress syndrome and traumatic brain injury, among trauma patients. Target protein identification technology is a vital technique in the field of biomedical research, enabling the study of biomolecular interactions, drug discovery and disease treatment. It plays a crucial role in identifying key protein targets associated with specific diseases or biological processes, facilitating further research, drug design and the development of treatment strategies. The application of target protein technology in biomarker detection enables the timely identification of newly emerging infections and complications in trauma patients, facilitating expeditious medical interventions and leading to reduced post-trauma mortality rates and improved patient prognoses. This review provides an overview of the current applications of target protein identification technology in trauma-related complications and provides a brief overview of the current target protein identification technology, with the aim of reducing post-trauma mortality, improving diagnostic efficiency and prognostic outcomes for patients.

Quasi-Chromophores Segregated by Single-Chain Nanoparticles of Fluorinated Zwitterionic Random Copolymers Showing Remarkably Enhanced Fluorescence Emission Capable of Fluorescent Cell Imaging.

Organic and polymer fluorescent nanomaterials are a frontier research focus. Here in this work, a series of fluorinated zwitterionic random copolymers end-attached with a quasi-chromophoric group of pyrene or tetraphenylethylene (TPE) are well synthesized via atom transfer radical polymerization with activators regenerated by electron transfer (ARGET ATRP). Those random copolymers with total degree of polymerization 100 or 200 are able to produce fluorescent single-chain nanoparticles (SCNPs) through intra-chain self-folding assembly with quite uniform diameters in the range of 10-20 nm as characterized by dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy. By virtue of the segregation or confinement effect, both SCNPs functionalized with pyrene or TPE group are capable of emitting fluorescence, with pyrene tethered SCNPs exhibiting stronger fluorescence emission reaching the highest quantum yield ≈20%. Moreover, such kind of fluorescent SCNPs manifest low cytotoxicity and good cell imaging performance for Hela cells. The creation of fluorescent SCNPs through covalently attached one quasi-chromophore to the end of one fluorinated zwitterionic random copolymer provides an alternative strategy for preparing polymeric luminescence nanomaterials, promisingly serving as a new type of fluorescent nanoprobes for biological imaging applications.